


how beauty burns

by worry



Category: Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Drabble, Emotional Healing, M/M, Post-Serial: s127 Enlightenment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-22
Updated: 2017-08-22
Packaged: 2018-12-18 18:09:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11879976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/worry/pseuds/worry
Summary: "You've had quite a long day," the Doctor says, and guides Turlough to his room, hand on his arm like - nothing Turlough has ever felt, a kindness new, a kindness unraveling onto his body, his body, his body. He never wants to let go. He wants to jump into this, undeserving. He does not deserve it and yet the Doctor provides kindness anyways, sees something in him that is not there, or buried, or burned, or lost, and Turlough has always been selfish, cowardly: he never wants to let go."Wait," Turlough says when the Doctor turns to leave. "Can you... stay, for a bit?"





	how beauty burns

**Author's Note:**

> Man. Guess who just watched Enlightenment. 
> 
> My heart hurts for Turlough, oh my God. My problematic baby, protect him. This is short, but I had to write _something_ about that serial.

_"You've had quite a long day," the Doctor says, and guides Turlough to his room, hand on his arm like - nothing Turlough has ever felt, a kindness new, a kindness unraveling onto his body, his body, his body. He never wants to let go. He wants to jump into this, undeserving. He does not deserve it and yet the Doctor provides kindness anyways, sees something in him that is not there, or buried, or burned, or lost, and Turlough has always been selfish, cowardly: he never wants to let go._

_"Wait," Turlough says when the Doctor turns to leave. "Can you... stay, for a bit?"_

 

* * *

 

 

“I do trust you, Turlough,” he says, sitting on the bed; his thigh presses into Turlough’s, just slightly, just soft enough to shatter everything Turlough has; he’s jumping off of a spaceship, he’s crashing a car, he  _ wants.  _

“Why?” asks Turlough, the only response that will surface. Why. Why trust him? Why? Why? “Trust” is a deep word, an ocean, something to drown in. “Trust” is dangerous. “Trust” cannot be gentle, but “trust” has soft skin and presses into Turlough’s leg and cares in every situation, so “trust” is the ocean, “trust” is drowning in itself. You cannot afford to trust. Turlough, especially, is not worthy of such a fall.

“Surely you know.”

“I don’t.”

The Doctor smiles, places a  _ trusting  _ hand on Turlough’s shoulder, trust can be gentle—trust, he realizes, can be trusted. “I know that the decision was hard. It was a tempting offer, I know. But in the end, you did what you knew was right. That struggle you felt is why I trust you, Turlough. Frankly, I’d be concerned if you hadn’t considered taking it.”

“I don’t understand.” 

He doesn’t; how can the Doctor spin positive from Turlough’s cowardice? How can he be so certain? There is nothing certain in Turlough’s heart. It died, small and weak. It died, because the universe slaughtered it. It died, and left trauma like a home deep inside of Turlough’s mind. He is between life and death, only existing inside of his own fears. Without fear there is nothing. Without trauma he is no one. With certainty he cannot love. 

“It means that you’re  _ good.  _ I trust you. Can you handle that?”

Turlough bites into the side of his mouth. He isn’t “good”— morality is too black and white, too strict, morality bites into the side of his mouth, but for a fraction, for a small fragment in time, Turlough accepts the Doctor’s words. He can be “good”, if he puts himself to work again.

“Thank you,” he says, carefully. It is all that he is capable of saying, a refusal to answer. Turlough feels it in his heart, in his trauma-brick home. In every part of his composure. A complexity taking place in the emptiness; he  _ wants,  _ dangerously.

“No need to thank me.”

He leans into the Doctor’s touch, doesn’t realize that they are  _ close  _ until the side of his head slams into the Doctor’s jaw. 

[It is only hopeful, only igniting. There is no pain buried here. Spark and intrigue where pain used to rest, opening their eyes.]

The Doctor pulls back, examines Turlough’s head. “I’m sorry. Are you okay? How do you feel?”

“I’m fine, don’t worry about me.”

“Well, I just don’t want to hurt you.”

[It is jarring; good intentions, care, kind touch. Jarring. He wants to stay here forever, wrapped in these good intentions, around someone who does not want to hurt him.]

He feels the Doctor stroke his cheek, he feels the Doctor love, he feels skin against him, deep contrast to the way he is used to feeling skin against him. It is bad to feel safe, it is a downfall, it is deceiving, but everything inside of him feels the warmth of the Doctor’s hands and their lack of aggression or force, and everything inside of him melts into safety, transforms into a world without barriers.

It is the Doctor, who makes the first move.

_  
_ He kisses Turlough like he knows that Turlough will shatter in his arms, a beautiful rarity too frail to be touched. No: he kisses Turlough and Turlough shatters in his arms and the Doctor leaves the pieces on his body and touches the true rarity; Turlough, uncovered, open and vulnerable,  _letting_ his vulnerability show. He feels safe. He would give his everything to the Doctor if the Doctor promised to give him one more touch, one more spark, one more kind word. 

**Author's Note:**

> "It was your hair that lit the fuse  
> A golden brown halo  
> Like sunlight peering through trees  
> [...]  
> Maybe you're the one who will complete me  
> Oh how beauty burns, lips and eyes and fingertips  
> The spark of desire on every point our bodies meet  
> Behind your eyes were stars, infinite and serene  
> How I would suffer for you, you fascinate and magnetize me  
> Sometimes I think, I would float away  
> If this sadness did not weigh me down" - Halo, by Bloc Party (a song that I think fits them very well).
> 
>  
> 
> pls tell me what you think; comments very appreciated :)


End file.
